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Tuners

Posted by HoustonCCCBD on 12/10/2025, 6:18 pm

What tuners and microphone pickups are you using with your band students in class especially now that kids can't use phones here in Texas? Pros and Cons to all posts are welcome. Thank in advance and have a Great Christmas Concert if it hasn't happened yet!

Re: Tuners

Posted by Chris Conway on 12/14/2025, 10:41 pm, in reply to "Tuners"

Our students have school issued IPads, so we have Tonal Energy on them We issue a Peterson pitch grabber clip mic that can plug into their IPad.

Re: Tuners

Posted by Amazon on 12/13/2025, 10:52 am, in reply to "Tuners"

We bought a bunch of rechargeable tuners on Amazon before the tariff business and they have worked great. Bright screen and no batteries. We put heavy duty Velcro on the back and on the top corner of our music stands. No issues with them falling off.

Re: Tuners

Posted by Interesting on 12/17/2025, 8:29 am, in reply to "Re: Tuners"

Do you have a link for these? I'm interested!

Re: Tuners

Posted by Korg on 12/11/2025, 9:13 am, in reply to "Tuners"

We use the Korg TM-50. Its the one that also has a metronome. We put them in the calculator pockets on the wall. I know there are other cheaper options, and I am sure your local store can give you other options that they can procure, but this is what we have. Honestly, we have been doing it for years, so the only difference is just that we have more of them now.
I make sure to go over how to use it, settings, etc. I have been in too many rehearsals where I see kids with tuners but they dont even know they are at 442 or 444. And I rotate which players/sections use them so they are not on them all the time.

Re: Tuners

Posted by Korg on 12/10/2025, 8:48 pm, in reply to "Tuners"

Bite the bullet and buy the Korg tuners. You don't need everyone to have their own metronome on the stand, don't buy the TM model, buy the CA-3 that's just a tuner. Cheaper tuners are slower to read and "settle."

The only feature I wish they had is transposing. Some of the cheaper ones can be set to transposed pitch instead of concert pitch. It's not super important, and not worth buying a less-capable tuner.

The clips are all flimsy. The Korg clips are the least bad among them.

Re: Tuners

Posted by Korg on 12/16/2025, 2:06 pm, in reply to "Re: Tuners"

When I had weak horn players, I bought them Center Pitch tuners. They transpose and clip onto the leadpipe easily

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